My 69 Dart "AKA" The Blue Mutt

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Heck no! All you need is a dead 69 Dart and you're in the club! :D
 
The first step is if the car runs find something simple that needs to be done, start to fix that and take a lot of other things off the car that are in decent shape and plan to upgrade them, make sure these things disable the car for a minimum of 6 months or more

Welcome to the club, so far dental dart is the only one who can claim success
 
billsdartgt said:
The first step is if the car runs find something simple that needs to be done, start to fix that and take a lot of other things off the car that are in decent shape and plan to upgrade them, make sure these things disable the car for a minimum of 6 months or more

Welcome to the club, so far dental dart is the only one who can claim success
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.... depends on what you define as successful... my car is running and driving... the brakes have been squishy again and it needs an alignment real bad...

It also doesn't have as nearly as nice of an engine bay as yours does... or as much compression... or HP... :poke::)
 
Well its been a sad day - for the jackstands that is, they no longer have 3000 pounds to keep them nestled tight to the ground - the Blue Mutt is alive and well - after a year of some learning how to combine multiple 4 letter words in completely different sentences, spending a shitload of money - my quest to repair a few leaking freeze plugs and replace 2 worn out strut rod bushings has come to an end, at least a bit - from all the grief and anguish there is a beast that has been born - the mutt took a couple of rides around today - there is still quite a bit of tuning to do but the car will slam you back in the seat pretty damn hard. One thing for sure I know is that the convertor in the car now is no where near what it needs, sitting at the redlights it really wants to push on the car hard to go. So in addition to the shakedown runs I am currently in my 3rd flush of water to purge out the cleaner and any residual funk that may have been floating around inside - the mini valves I installed in the block sure are cool. The mutt is gonna get the cover treatment for a bit now - Im giving my son my older truck and need to do some service and a few minor other things to take and surprise him when he is home in Utah for Christmas. Theres more to come but it will be a bit,

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Congrats!!! That thing looks sharp and the lil one approves of how it sounds! She was super excited when I started playing the video.

I never noticed how clean your paint is and that tail panel sure is pretty! Did you redo it or was it already in that good of shape?

Oh yea did I say how excited I am for you to have it "done." I also may be slightly jealous...
 
Daaaaayum! That's one fine sounding machine! So glad to see it out in the sunlight under its own power. :thumbsup:

I shall soldier on as the last remaining member of the Dead Dart Musketeers. :(
 
@DentalDart - far from done - but done for a while - at least till I get the truck taken care of - I bought the car as you see it on the outside except for the Cragers, of course many other things you don't see in the picture

@halfafish - I should have worked on the truck months ago but swore off all my other cars till I could drive the dart - while it can hit the streets there is still much more to do
 
billsdartgt said:
@DentalDart - far from done - but done for a while - at least till I get the truck taken care of - I bought the car as you see it on the outside except for the Cragers, of course many other things you don't see in the picture

@halfafish - I should have worked on the truck months ago but swore off all my other cars till I could drive the dart - while it can hit the streets there is still much more to do
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Its going to be snowing up there soon isnt it?
 
hard to believe more than 2 years have gone by in a flash - many new challenges along the way but the Dart will be back in the limelight soon for some more budget busting fun - stay tuned
 
the blue mutt has assumed one of its favorite positions, this will be to the finish line not just a stopping point since the dust of life has settled down. Plenty of things on the list, first up put in some speakers in the dash, nice fit, tok everything out to weld up extra holes the previous owner left for me, he had all kind of crap bolted in I guess, also while I always wanted to try some low gears the 4.11s just aint for me, off for some 3.55s.

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was able to get my Ford mix out a couple of months ago, pure American - did get rid of one of the other Fords and replaced with another Dodge, once the Dart is done I will have my mopars lined up -

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minor progress, since my car was set up with a floor shifter when I bought it I decided to ditch the collar on the column, column is out and waiting on a new bearing, will rebuild the coupling while out also, cleaned up all the little holes when the previous owner had various things mounted or attached to the car, will seal them then once I get some paint color match will give it a quick coat in the trunk, interior will probably get black. This car was raced by previous owner with a fuel cell in the trunk with pump and connections through the tire well, he patched the hole but it looks a little crappy, Im gonna make it look just a bit better

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little progress - getting pieces together to update the steering wheel, waiting on another piece I found to arrive to then figure out what works the best. Another piece to the blue mutt puzzle - I seem to have what is a one year only 67 steering wheel - go figure, Im still gonna dig into that some more just for fun to truly know for sure. Got my door hardware out to refresh and clean and also convert the 68 driver door to a 69, only to realize parts I bought a couple of years ago were wrong. finished patching holes in the floors, got some fresh paint down and part of the insulation kit installed that I also bought a few years ago - wil see how the rest goes, wish I would have open when bought as it appears that it is quite old and was/is borderline not usable. When I got the car running I had an odd noise and figured I would truly dig into as I started these final pieces, I found what I believe the culprit is. When I installed the new torsion bars and headers I had to clearance a few spots and a few others were tight but figured they would be ok - well they werent. The 292 cam make this engine move, I pulled the torsion bars and hammered some clearance into the headers, it aint pretty but doesn't bother me one bit, I will watch closely when all back together, the solid mounts may make their way back. I was happy with my small screw hole patches so gonna take care of a few on the inner fenders, still have a few more things let to take off the car and then on to final assembly and install of new parts - then watch the for sale section for leftovers - gonna be doing some housecleaning. I also got my B&M ratchet shifter refurbed, the handle had stripped threads and was pitted, also while it worked it seemed as something wasn't just right, there was a small pivot arm seized that didn't allow the lockought from neutral to work properly - all good now.

waining on 1 more piece then will be ready to finish steering column after some mods and paint heres what I have now
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interior progress still more heat shield to go down as well as some summit bought stuff

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billsdartgt said:
location of the door lock hole, 69 is further to front of car
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Yunick13 said:
68 cars also got a black door button, while 69's were chrome.
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Umm… yeah I am not sure I would ever know the difference…. Lol don’t ever judge my non concourse restorations. My *** would have 2 different doors and never know it :rofl:
 
Doc, I didn't know the difference when I bought the car LOL, If the door would have had a lock rod to start I may not even be considering the conversion to 69, it isn't just a hardware swap, the interior door face has a different recess area that will need some sort of modification Im thinking.

on another note - I have finally accepted without any more denial or curiosity that I do in fact have a steering column from a 1967 dart, I played the old Johnny Cash song today to make myself feel special LOL
 
Just finished going through your thread. Nice build - especially your tenacity in the face of constant obstructions.

Regarding the motor mounts, back in the 70s, I had a 340 in my 'Cuda that kept breaking motor mounts. I tried all kinds of things, even solid mounts (I felt like I was getting a massage every time I drove the car). Then a friend suggested leaving the solid mount on the driver's side (that was the one that was breaking as a result of the excessive torque) and leave the rubber mount on the passenger side. This helped take a lot of the vibration out of the car. Might be worth a try.
 
Thanks fantum, Im gonna pay more attention to the motor when I run it again and see if I can judge how much it might be moving, mounts are sucky to change but could do it fairly quick
 
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